272 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



out the law, to see wherein the laws and customs have 

 produced good results and wherein they have failed; to 

 see what principles have become established with which 

 new laws must conform or be declared void. Such a 

 study has two objects. The first is to help the people 

 of Utah in the establishment of an irrigation system 

 which will bring about the largest use of their water 

 supply; the second is to present to other states having 

 like conditions the lessons of Utali's experience." 



The plan for this investigation was to select typical 

 streams in various parts of the state and describe the 

 actual conditions created by the appropriation and use 

 of their waters. Thus the Virgin and Sevier were se- 

 lected in the southern part of the state, the Weber and 

 Logan in the northern part, and the Jordan and its trib- 

 utaries in the central part. In this way practically 

 every feature of the state's irrigation system, many of 

 them having a curious as well as economic interest, are 

 described. Three of the reports were prepared by resi- 

 dents of the state, two of whom have had official as well 

 as personal opportunities of becoming fully informed 

 regarding existing conditions, one being Hon. A. P. 

 Doremus, state engineer, and the other Prof. G. L. 

 Swendsen, professor of irrigation engineering in the 

 State Agricultural College. The other reports were 

 prepared by the regular agents of the department who 

 had carried on similar studies in other parts of the 

 West and were, therefore, able to compare the institu- 

 tions of Utah with those of other states. This makes 

 the report especially valuable, since the conditions are 

 discussed by those who have a deep personal interest in 

 the state,, and also by those who are, in a measure, dis- 

 interested students of the questions involved. 



For the people of Utah, probably the most valuable 

 features of the report are the view it gives them of the 

 conditions which demanded a change in the laws of the 

 state, and the explanation of the law passed in 1903, 

 showing that it does not create an entirely new system, 

 but is a natural outgrowth of the former system of water 

 control. 



The distinctive features of Utah's economic life is 

 cooperation, and the reports give an interesting view of 

 the organization and operation of cooperative canal 

 companies, showing the cost of water rights, the annual 

 cost of water, and the returns obtained from the use of 

 water. These cooperative companies furnish water to 

 farmers cheaper than any other companies, since the 

 farmers pay no profits to anyone, the assessments being 

 just large enough to cover the cost of keeping their 

 canals in order, and distributing the water. The aver- 

 age annual cost of water is about $1.25 per acre irri- 

 gated. 



The point in which Utah irrigators excel those of 

 other states is in their distribution of water from ditches 

 Instead of dividing the water supplied by a canal in pro- 

 portion to the interest of each stockholder, each is given 

 a good-sized stream, the time which each is allowed the 

 use of a stream being proportioned to his interest in the 

 canal. These methods can well be studied by the people 

 of the other arid states, while the people of Utah can 

 Study with profit the administrative laws of the neigh- 

 boring states. 



Economists and others who wish to study the sub- 

 ject of irrigation in its broader respects, will find in 

 them much valuable data as to laws and forms of organ- 

 izations, and their effects, while the irrigation farmers 

 will find them full of suggestions as to methods and 

 crops. This bulletin is the second of a series of reports. 



THE PRIMER OE IRRIGATION. 



BY D. H. ANDERSON. 



COPYRIGHTED, 1903, BY D. H. ANDERSON. 



CHAPTER IV. 



ALKALI SOILS; THEIR NATURE, TREATME-NT AND 

 RECLAMATION. 



The "alkalis," as they are called, are common to all 

 soils wherever they may be found on the globe; they 

 belong to earth and are part of its essential constituents. 



Originally, they were brought or carried into the 

 soil along with the other elements which form its in- 

 organic bulk (as has been explained in Chapter II), 

 by the pulverization of rocks and minerals, the deposi- 

 tion of inorganic sediment held in solution by water, 

 by glacial action, by seepage from rivers, and numerous 

 other ways. 



These elements, if unacted upon, would forever 

 remain in an insoluble, inert condition, incapable of 

 exerting any influence upon each other, or of perform- 

 ing any functions whatever; in which case, however, 

 there could not be any plant life of any kind. But 

 nature comes in and begins action upon these elements 

 and changes their form so that they may become capable 

 of aiding in the production of plants by furnishing 

 them with the food to make them grow and ripen their 

 fruit or seed. 



First, we have the atmosphere, or air, which, how- 

 ever arid the region, contains oxygen in a very large 

 proportion, and this oxygen attacks the inorganic ele- 

 ments, transforming them into various substances, or 

 rather fits them to be acted upon by other substances so 

 that they may become useful or otherwise. Thus, 

 oxygen acts upon potash, soda, lime and magnesia to 

 form what are known as "alkaline bases," that is, the 

 foundations for the "salts," which are beneficial in mod- 

 erate quantities but injurious in excess. The forces of 

 nature are always at 'work, regardless of the quantity 

 of the product; certain laws are followed, and these 

 laws keep on operating in certain unvarying ways, ac- 

 cording to a fixed program, which is never changed un- 

 less man comes in and compels a change. The follow- 

 ing table will enable the reader to understand in a gen- 

 eral way how nature works upon the elements in the 

 soil through oxygen : 



OXYGEN 



Unites with Potassium and forms Potash. 



Unites with Sodium and forms Soda. 



Unites with Calcium and forms Lime. 



Unites with Magnesium and forms Magnesia. 



The oxygen acts upon the above four metals just 

 as it does on iron exposed to the air, when it forms the 

 familiarly known "rust," which is technically called 

 "oxide of iron." So the potash, soda, lime and mag- 

 nesia are really the earth oxides, the .four of them 

 being "alkaline bases," that is, the foundations upon 

 which to compound all the various kinds of alkalis. 



These "oxides," or "bases," in themselves, would 

 be of very little use or harm while in that state, but the 

 oxygen in the air and everywhere else attacks the other 

 essential elements in the soil as well as the potash, 

 soda, lime and magnesia, that is, the silicon, carbon, 

 sulphur and phosphorus, but instead of converting them 

 into oxides, or alkaline bases, turns them into "acids." 

 The following table will explain: 



